We have now descended five hundred feet to the Chinle Formation. This is the perfect place to be alone; I passed up the guy behind me, and there is no one visible for literally miles. The air is silent and growing warm. The only natural source of water is the river, which is a good days walk, assuming that there were a trail down to it from here, which there is not. If you cannot make it back up by evening, there is no water, probably no one coming until tomorrow, and 50 deg nights. Part of the alienness is the landscape, and the towering cliffs which cut you off from the water that the sleeping bag that will get you through the night; part of it is that there is the silence, only you, alone. Warm, still, silent, solitude.